


On That Day I Shall Mourn

by shepromisestheearth



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Amanda Knows, Angst, Episode: s02e05 Amok Time, Episode: s03e12 Plato's Stepchildren, Episode: s03e21 Requiem For Methuselah, Love Letters, M/M, Pining, Pining Idiots, Sad, because the ending made me big mad, had to write a fic showing McCoy how wrong he is, i’m petty, playing chess, posted in time for the anniversary!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 14:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shepromisestheearth/pseuds/shepromisestheearth
Summary: “Because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to.”





	On That Day I Shall Mourn

**Author's Note:**

> long time no see!!! I currently have like a million wips but no time to work on them because school exists, but I finished this in time for the anniversary of amok time! skipping over a long dumb ramble about how much these fools mean to me, I hope you enjoy this fic!! 💞

“You wouldn’t understand that, would you, Spock?” McCoy had asked, in that overbearing human tone that his mother had put on when chastising him as a child. Spock understood the emotion to be sympathy, one of which he detested the most. 

McCoy was an interesting character, and not necessarily by the token that he was human. A hunched man, often bouncing on his toes as he clenched his jaw at the Captain- or whoever else warranted his wrath, but typically this behavior was towards Kirk- and sufficiently, ‘chewed them out’ in that southern American drawl. How big he tried to make himself appear, folding his arms over his chest and surveying Spock’s face with a mix of disgust and pity. 

“You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him.” 

And for what? The one more deserving of sympathy here was clearly the Captain Kirk, although Spock had his doubts to whether or not the Captain would appreciate these feelings from the doctor or anyone else. The death of an android woman after feeling. What a harrowing fate, one of which Spock avoided with meditation despite that heavy feeling in his chest to confess of the allegorical sin of yearning. A foil to him, she was the one who had let her heart leap into her throat and she choked on it. 

“Because you’ll never know the things that love can drive a man to.” 

So that was the meaning behind this conversation. To make a mockery of him; to point his finger at him and laugh. On Vulcan he had been too emotional, here he was too emotionless. So what could it have been? Was he to be stuck in the limbo of never being the right thing? There was no thing he was supposed to be. He was the first and the last, the freak of nature, the divine conception. Not whole in one sense or another. 

But here was where McCoy was wrong- he knew, and had always known. Trying to admit to oneself that an action was not born of love was another thing, but he certainly knew what it was. No matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut and made his body go rigid, that simple feeling could never be repressed. 

“The ecstasies.” 

Kirk looked into his eyes, looked more than anyone had ever done before. His lips toyed with a smile, before glancing back to their game of chess. He raised his hand to cup his chin, eyes flickering over the pieces and returning to the first officer’s every time. 

He moved the piece. 

Spock moved his own, the words falling from his mouth: “checkmate.” 

“Ah, looks like you win again.” Kirk’s finger poked his splayed palm, the connection of skin somehow…, “You’re very good at this, Mr. Spock. It’s a good thing we’ve got five years to play together, isn’t it?” 

“Certainly, Captain.” Spock said, rigid as something bloomed in his chest. 

He looked up at the clock, sighing as a regretful look filled his face, “It looks as if we won’t be able to begin a new game- I’ll see you in the Bridge, First Officer.” 

“Yes, Captain.” 

Spock watched on as Captain Kirk glided out from the room, watched his smiles directed towards crewmen, and wondered how the world had become rose-colored.

“The miseries.” 

Pain echoed from his lungs as he tried to choke on the laughter. 

“He’s a Vulcan! You can’t force emotion out of him.” McCoy urged, nearly spitting. 

The guttural noise was wrong, felt so wrong, as he dragged himself up the steps. His cheeks felt tight and hurt and he wanted nothing more to stop. To stop and pray and-

“You must be joking, Doctor.” Philana laughed with a wave of her hand, which only made the doctor more angry. 

“You’ll destroy him!” His eyebrows nearly jumped off his face. 

“We can’t let him die laughing, can we?” 

How sad it would’ve been, to die disobeying Surak. What would father have thought, mind-control aside? How would father feel about this wracking feeling, this tightness in his stomach, these tears in his eyes? This wetness? 

“I beg you.” 

He cried, and cried, and cried, knowing what it was for the first time- he had felt wetness before, unknowing. Now he understood. He wished he didn’t. He wished he hadn’t. Burying his face in his arm, the bird nestled in his lungs flew- when I awoke I was alone, this bird has flown. 

Crawl off to the bath. This bird has-

“Spock.” 

Clear as the gong, Kirk repeated his name with great trouble, “Don’t let them break you.” 

Spock yearned to be broken. 

“Hold on. Don’t.” 

“The broken rules.” 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” 

Spock glanced up at his mother, who had her arms folded over her chest. His cheek still stung, hours later, but all that had mattered to her was that Father was not dead. Was this her chance to apologize, as Terrans constantly felt they must?

“Nothing is wrong,” 

Settling beside him, she sighed, looking out of the large window that he so often hid behind rich red curtains. She touched her face, and her fingers came back wet, “I remember when you came back from the first day of school and you said the same thing. The boys had bullied you. But this is different, isn’t it?”

“Then it is irrelevant. I assure you that no one has made a mockery of me,” 

“The Captain is a nice boy,” Mother smiled at him. Her lipstick was the color of plomeek.

Spock bristled. 

“You like him, don’t you? Oh, I just know Michael would-,” Mother put her hands together and grinned. 

“I do not know what you are speaking of,” 

She placed her hands on the sides of his face, “I told him I was glad you found a friend in him. I just wish that you would-,” 

“I will never conform to your human ideal of me, Mother, the same way that I will never conform to father’s Vulcan ideal,” He was getting mother’s fingers wet. 

“Oh, Spock,” she whispered, and wrapped her arms around his neck, “Oh, Ashal-veh sa-fu, I’m sorry,” 

“Do not be,” he stared at the doors, “For it is not logical to,” 

“The desperate chances.” 

It was illogical. 

Writing these words was illogical. But was he willing, after so long, to be without it? He would rather disobey everything he ever knew if it meant that Jim would smile and he knew it was meant for him. It would mean…. How could something so small mean everything? 

When he watched him read off the cream paper in the Bridge, he perspired and tried to keep his eyes trained on the computer. He sat in the chair, not trusting his disobeying limbs to tremble as Kirk cupped his chin and scanned. 

There was a blinking red star in the distance, and it reminded him of a lullaby. Of his mother’s sharp voice as she contested for his freedoms. 

Kirk gave a small smile, and tucked the note into his pocket. 

“I got an anonymous love letter earlier,” he said over dinner, “Seems we have a poet on board.” 

Spock’s lips closed around the spoon. 

“Why, what did it say, Captain?” Uhura leaned forward with a conspiring smile.

“I don’t know if they’d want me to read it aloud,”

“You cannot mention someting like zat and then keep it to yourself, keptain!” Chekov protested, “I vill read it,” 

“Oh, don’t let him. You read it, Captain,” Sulu urged. 

Kirk gave them all an exasperated look, then reached into the pocket of his pants. Out he pulled that crumpled letter, and Spock stared at the words he had written, 

“Dearest Captain,

How can so many days pass and yet I still harbor you within this heart of mine? Without the return of affection, I should not keep you still. Perhaps through this letter I can say how I feel and you will free your hands from my very soul. 

Of you I can say this: you have offered me things that no one else has, and it brings to me fear that I can neither acknowledge nor nurture. I wish to pursue it when I think of touching your hand. I wish to pursue it when you state my name aloud. I wish to pursue affection as you offer your hand to your fellow man, and foolishly- jealously- I wish it were my own. These things are wrong to say, but I must admit them now or I may never-,” 

“Mr. Spock, where are you going?” 

Spock looked at Uhura, grasping his tray in his hand, “I am returning my dishes to be cleaned. I have finished my meal and now will retire to my quarters,” 

“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the letter, Spock?” Chekov asked, lips twisting in confusion as he gestured to a now paused Kirk. 

“I have no interest in listening to the yearning of one to the Captain, Ensign Chekov.” 

Chekov furrowed his brows and leaned back in his chair, mumbling something under his breath. 

“Completely understandable, Spock. I’ll see you in the morning,” Kirk offered him a smile, fingers brushing against his handwriting. He did not understand this time, and never would. It did not matter any longer, if it had in the first place. 

“The glorious failures.” 

The realization of what he had done. The ahn woon round his neck, his hand clenching it there. It had taken everything within him to not break every vow he had made unto Surak in that moment. To not allow his eyes to become damp. To not scream in agony as he felt his heart had been trampled on. 

His limp body. His limp body in his arms. McCoy ripping him away. No chance to say goodbye. That was not the way of the Vulcan. 

Folding that purple cloth of great power, of great symbolism. Of power and ambition. 

The weight of leadership levied on his shoulders alongside the death of the one person he knew understood him. Who had defended him so many times. Who offered him conversation and smiles and made him stay awake at night, thinking. 

Aimless. It did not matter when T’Pring slipped from him. Only what she had done. What she had caused. 

I shall do neither. I have killed my captain and my friend. 

“And the glorious victories.” 

The joy in Kirk’s face as he impishly asked Spock a question. His resurrection from the grave. Did he expect Spock to not react?

That wonderful name leaving his lips. Jim. Almost melodical, and the emotion that he had been holding for so long inside leaked out with it. He was no longer limp, no, he was sturdy and here and-

Illogical. This smile on his face. The presence of this man, so beloved.

And the madness was gone. 

“All of these things you’ll never know.” 

“Simply because the word ‘love’ isn’t written into your book.” 

“Goodnight, Spock.” 

“Goodnight, Doctor.” 

“I do wish he could forget her.” McCoy sighed, his eyes resting on the back of Jim’s head for a moment. He shook his head, then exited the Captain’s quarters, the fwip of the doors announcing that once again the First Officer and Captain of the Enterprise were alone together. 

Spock observed him, arms behind his back as he surveyed the parts of that lovely human still viewable to him- the golden hair so foreign to his planet, his pink forehead pressed against his laboring, yet gentle, hands, the gentle fluttering of his eyelashes as he experienced REM sleep. He had not viewed the Captain as this vulnerable since when those children made him doubt his control of the Enterprise. Unexplainable, illogical pain thudded in his side. 

He moved closer to him, his hand only centimeters away from the Captain. Pausing before touching him, Spock closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. Imagining a world in which it was not like this. In a world in which he was human and Kirk could understand. In a world in which he was fully Vulcan and could stay on that narrow path that his ancestors had carved out for him. 

Finally, he leaned down, and with all the gentleness he could muster he laid his hand against Kirk’s head. Spock’s fingertips pressed against his temple. 

As he did, all of the clustered emotion surging within Kirk came to the surface. Along that tethered line, like the human game of children long past holding a soup can to their ear and listening to the twine. The shatter of glass echoed across the void between them, a hollowed sobbing as Spock’s under eyes became wet with the shared emotion of heartbreak. He could stand it no longer, could not pry any further. He honed in on what was Kirk’s love and agony for Rayna. 

“Forget.” Spock whispered.


End file.
